


Not quite as easy as breathing

by internationalprincess



Category: West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-03-13
Updated: 2002-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:06:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/internationalprincess/pseuds/internationalprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I’m not sure if she means working in the same environment as my boyfriend, or if she means compromising with him."</p><p>2002 Jeds - Second Place - Outstanding Josh/Amy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not quite as easy as breathing

The phone ringing in the middle of the night used to signal disaster. Nobody calls after midnight unless there is death, injury or crisis involved.

Now the phone ringing in the middle of the night means Josh, and I haven’t adapted to that yet. I still come out of sleep with my heart pounding, clutching desperately at the bedside table in the dark for the receiver, knocking things over in my panic. Trying to breathe.

Henry, who has been asleep on my feet, whines his displeasure and slumps back in a heap, a comforting weight at the end of the bed.

I press the receiver to my ear. Realising the television is still on; I begin to reach around in the sheets for the remote.

“Are you watching?”

He’s excited. I’m still disoriented. I catch my wrist on my laptop, still open on the bed beside me, and wonder how I could have fallen asleep like this.

“Huh?” is the best I can manage.

“Are you watching the coverage?” he asks. I bet if I could see him right now he’d be bouncing up and down like a little boy. He has that childish inflection in his voice.

“You won,” I guess, as my hand finally closes around the remote and I turn the sound up on the set a little. The anchor is discussing Bartlet’s victory in Hartsfield’s Landing.

“Yeah, we won!” he exclaims, as if it had been a certainty all along. As if he hadn’t been grumbling while he shaved this morning about “retail politics”. As if he hadn’t called me twice today to moan about the Flinders…or the Flanders…or whoever they were. I find myself grinning. I can hear music in the background.

“Are you celebrating?”

“Why aren’t you here?”

I laugh, swinging my legs out of bed and wandering into the bathroom while we talk.

“You want me to come meet you?” I ask, running a glass of water and examining my appearance in the mirror. I have bed-hair, and creases on my face from the pillow. I toy with Josh’s razor, abandoned alongside the sink.

There’s a sort of scuffling sound. He must have put his hand over the receiver. I can hear muffled voices as he speaks to someone else.

He comes back on the line. “Donna says I’ve had too much to drink, which is *obviously* false.”

More scuffling and Donna wrests the phone away from him, “Amy, seriously, you should see him. He’s only got one shoe on. Do you want me to force him into a cab, or do you want to come get him?”

“One shoe?” I’m already stuffing my feet into trainers and digging in the pocket of my overcoat for car keys. Donna is giggling on the other end of the line, and I suspect that the explanation will be long-winded. “Never mind. I’m coming to get him. Tie him to a chair or something before he hurts himself.”

“Done.”

As I turn the keys in the engine, I flip the pages of my mental scrapbook looking for another guy I would have driven across town in the middle of the night to collect while drunk. I don’t come up with anyone.

Exhale.

*

“So you weren’t at the party tonight, and you really…you should have been…because we won!”

Josh is sprawled across the passenger seat in an inelegant fashion, his head lolling against the window.

“Yes you did, and you drank from the keg of victory.” I humour him, pulling the car in to the curb outside my apartment building.

Josh announces, “And this, this is not where I live.” He doesn’t seem put off by this, although he almost winds up on the pavement trying to exit the car.

“But you’re coming to the next shindig, because you’re my girlfriend now, right?” he asks, as he tries to steady himself.

I have to fight back a smile.

“I don’t know, J. You didn’t pass me a note in homeroom asking me to go steady.”

He bats the comment away with a swipe of his hand. “But, the First Lady? Doctor Mrs Abigail? She didn’t put ‘and partner’ on my invitation.”

His leaps of logic are swift enough when he’s sober. I unlock the front door, push him into the apartment, toe off my trainers, dump my keys on the table. I pick up a thick cream envelope from amongst the pile of unopened mail, and wave it in his direction.

“I got my own.”

“Really...”

He looks at the envelope. I can’t read his expression.

“Really...” he repeats. I drop the invite back on the table and walk over to him. Reach up and untie his tie, sliding it from his collar slowly. He leans in and kisses my neck.

Inhale.

*

“I will not!”

“But it’s sort of your...role”

“I’m sorry?!” I retort, raising my voice and one eyebrow in equal measure.

“In your capacity as my girlfriend,” he responds, and by the faint smirk he’s only half joking.

“I’m not here as your girlfriend, as you’ll recall. I’m here at the First Lady’s invitation.”

I’m distracted by his fingers playing with the fine hairs at the back of my neck. There are hothouse orchids beside my bed right now with a card explaining that their petals were the closest thing he could find to my skin. A gesture I might have found tacky from other men.

Josh is not other men.

The band strikes up a fanfare and someone announces Abbey Bartlet’s arrival. Josh doesn’t even turn to look. As we both get to our feet he never breaks eye contact with me.

Exhale.

*

“Happy birthday, Mrs B!” Josh calls as we make our way over to the President and the First Lady.

“Thank you, Josh!” she replies. “Amy, a friend!” Abbey has a plastic grin on her face, which signals that this evening isn’t going as she’d hoped. “You know I’m responsible for the two of you. I haven’t gotten credit for that yet.”

We both respond at the same time. He says, “The jury’s still out.”

I say, “We’ll see.”

Maybe I do need that note in homeroom. Just to be sure of myself. To be sure of us.

Abbey’s discomfort escalates as the British Ambassador pronounces her breasts to be ‘magnificent’. I make a face at Josh to express disgust, and he steers me gently away.

*

“Well, it’s salmon, it doesn’t count,” I announce, forking more of it onto my plate.

“That’s a novel way of explaining it.”

I wonder if I should enjoy the fact that he’s always touching me. Hand on my back, hand on my arm, arm round my waist.

Inhale.

We are interrupted by Chuck Kane, wanting to talk to Josh about 'the thing'. The fact that half of Josh’s life is conducted in code grates now and again. I feel like a mobster’s wife, realising for the hundredth time that while he has this job not all of him will belong to me. I can feel my face falling, even as Chuck excuses himself and walks away.

“About ‘the thing’? You guys pulling a heist?”

“No.”

“C’mon,” I wheedle, “let me in on the action.”

I’m surprised when he does, and even more surprised to discover that ‘the thing’ is something that crossed my desk a few days ago. Something I’d been trying to get to Bruno Gianelli about, with little success.

As I’m dancing with him I understand he is right. Some things we are not going to be able to take to each other. I wonder if we will be forever negotiating boundaries.

*

I wasn’t trying to trick him. I really do think he’s right. But then I’m sitting by myself while he tries to sort out Donna’s security clearance, and Abbey is fleeing a photographer who hasn’t let her sit down in over twenty minutes, and we wind up talking about how men can be jackasses.

“You haven’t called in a while,” she complains.

“You’ve been busy, ma’am.”

I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing as Abbey purses her lips and takes another slug of champagne.

“Be that as it may,” she responds, “I miss our little chats. I don’t want Josh taking you away from me.”

I smile, and hold my glass out for a waiter to refill it. “If it’s any consolation, I plan on calling you tomorrow.”

“Because I just told you that you should?”

“No, ma’am. Because your husband’s campaign isn’t hiring enough women.”

There is a moment’s pause, and I know what’s coming, but it still makes me smile as Abbey raises a glass toward me and huffs, “Jackass!”

*

I’m actually surprised that she does anything about it at her birthday party, of all places. I’m just trying to work out whether Josh is genuinely pissed at me when she comes to my rescue.

“CJ and I are going to get drunk. Come on...”

“Yes ma’am.”

Josh looks at me strangely. There’s a mixture of admiration and irritation in his face. He seems to be amused by the idea that the First Lady and CJ are dragging me off to parts unknown, but he would really rather I stayed and had this argument with him. There is no way in hell I’m going to.

Exhale.

“The First Lady just asked me to get boozy with her. You don’t think I want to write a book one day?”

*

I know I’ve had far too much to drink, which can’t be entirely sensible, given the company I’m in.

I’ve been trying to explain Josh’s ‘nutty’ to Donna and CJ. I ask Donna if Josh has ever conducted political business at a party. Donna laughs so hard wine almost comes out of her nose.

“Of course he has!” she finally splutters.

“So I don’t really see how this is any different,” I continue. “It’s just that he thinks of the White House as *his* turf.”

CJ nods back at me, but responds, “Graphite is pretty important in the construction of a really first-class corkscrew, you know.”

Abbey rolls her eyes. “Amy, you are just feeling your way with each other. Give it some time. It will become as natural as breathing.”

I’m not sure if she means working in the same environment as my boyfriend, or if she means compromising with him.

Or compromising for him.

*

Wine. More wine. CJ gives us a dissertation on why the “Union-Leader” is a stupid name for a newspaper anyway. Donna attempts to pronounce ‘Newfoundland’ correctly. Yet more wine.

My head is beginning to spin a little and I’ve tilted off my axis so that I’m practically reclining against the First Lady of the United States. Number one on my list of ‘Things I never imagined I’d be doing ten years ago’. I say as much, but CJ starts in on dangling modifiers again, and the point is lost.

“I wanted to ask you a question but I’m not sure how...” I say to Abbey.

“What?”

“Well if the most they can give you is a year’s suspension, is it...”

“That big a deal?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes! I’m a doctor! It’s not like changing your major. You of all people should...I mean women talk about their husbands overshadowing their careers. Mine got eaten.”

CJ is quick to query this. “Your husband got eaten?”

CJ wanders off the reservation again, and starts talking about getting a cat. I, meanwhile, am stunned that this amazing woman can possibly think that her world is crashing down around her if her medical license is suspended for a year. I try to explain to her what a contribution she has made, *is making*, as First Lady. I wish she could see what a difference it is not having a Li’l Miss Homemaker in the White House. Abbey is this incredible role model. In our drunken haze, I imagine neither CJ nor I are making much headway in conveying this to her.

In the end it seems to be Donna’s unexpected outburst that penetrates the fog.

Inhale.

We all hold our breath.

“He took the censure standing up Abbey. I was very proud to have voted for him that day.”

I mean that.

“Me too.”

Abbey, it seems, has made a decision.

*

As we descend the stairs from the Residence, Donna excuses herself to head back to the West Wing - ostensibly to look for Josh - but I can see she is still smarting from what happened upstairs. I stop and catch her by the arm.

“You okay?”

She looks at me with a heavy expression that sums up what a wretched night she’s been having.

“I...uh...I’m going to find Josh. And I’ll tell him, you know...about the fact he’s a hypocrite. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

I grin at her, and she turns to head off down a side corridor.

“Donna,” I call after her, and she spins back to look at me. “It’s really okay…the thing...with Dr Bartlet. She’s not going to hold it against you.”

Donna’s tight smile suggests she doesn’t believe me, and she shrugs a little before hurrying away.

*

Josh makes his way towards us and swings behind me to talk to Donna. It seems clear that she must have said something to him outside when he turns to me and stage whispers in an exaggerated way, “I understand, and I forgive you.”

“You forgive me?”

“I do.”

“What the hell kind of thing is...”

“Honey!” I’m interrupted by the First Lady raising an eyebrow and smirking at me as she looks away to keep herself from laughing.

“Thank you for forgiving me Josh, I appreciate that.” My voice is laced with sarcasm.

“No problem.”

“Jackass.”

And we’re back on level ground.

Exhale.

*

Josh has swept me on to the dance floor again, and I run a finger down the lapel of his jacket. His hand is burning an imprint on my hip.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I whisper.

He shakes his head slightly, reaches out and tucks my hair behind my ear. “I’m not used to being with somebody who...you know...is working my arena.”

“Mandy Hampton?”

“All right. What I mean to say is…I’m terrified of being with someone working my arena *again*.”

“I’m not Mandy.”

“I know.”

“I’m not, J.”

“I like that they like you,” he segues inarticulately. I don’t know what he means for a moment.

“Who?”

“Mrs Bartlet...CJ...Donna...I like that you were off drinking with them.”

I’m not sure what to do with that. I feel safest changing the subject. “I’m glad Donna’s an American again.”

He takes my hand in his. “Will you dump me if the Deputy Political Director turns out to be a man?”

I stretch back to look at him, his head tilted to one side, bowtie a little crooked, dimples making a long overdue appearance.

“Will you dump me if I go on Capital Beat and criticise the campaign’s hiring policies?”

He laughs softly and kisses me.

I guess not.

Inhale.

Exhale.


End file.
